I could see the upper south being more D than New England in 20 years

[Skill and Chance]

Maryland is already more D than any New England state other than Rhode Island.  Virginia is quickly becoming an extension of Maryland and I could envision it ending up in 60% generic D territory like present day MD in the 2030's.  As far as NC moving left of New England, that's much harder to believe.  What makes New England unusually D is a mix of social libertarianism and economic justice Catholicism.  Social issues dominate in VT, NH, and CT with ME and RI voting on economic issues.  MA has both factions with social issues becoming more dominant over time.  I don't think New England will move as a group going forward.  I could see a more libertarian GOP flipping NH back and gaining ground in the NY and Boston suburbs, but I could also see a populist GOP slowly winning over ME and RI and some parts of MA.   

[Skill and Chance]

The GOP could conceivably take Connecticut, with the right candidate. That state strikes me as somewhere that would easily go Conservative in UK elections - it kind of reminds me of the Home counties that surround London.

On paper yes, but people who make $200K and still vote Dem usually have a very good reason for voting Dem:

1. Very pro-choice
2. Very pro-gay rights
3. Guilt based on system being rigged in their favor
4. Environmentalist

Do you see any outreach from the GOP on any of these issues right now?  They aren't campaigning for economically secure War on Women/Global Warming voters.  Flipping CT is equivalent to flipping the wealthy parts of the Bay Area IMO.  Romney was probably the ideal person to do it and he only held Obama under 60%.

[Skill and Chance]

I mean, I seriously doubt any casual political observer of the 1940s would have guess the American South to be among the Republicans' strongest regions in 1972.

30 years from now is an eternity and politics, and there is no shortage of things that could happen between now to then to flip the political allegiances of any particular region of the country.

Well I think a political scientist watching 1948, with Truman supporting civil rights and Thurmond carrying several Southern states might have foreseen the switch, or perhaps predicted a permanent Southern 3rd party.

[Skill and Chance]

This might be moving too fast, but I think it's a very plausible realignment:

[Skill and Chance]

This might be moving too fast, but I think it's a very plausible realignment:

That looks possible, though I think that Vermont will remain solidly Democratic for the foreseeable future and feel that Arkansas, West Virginia and Oklahoma will trend even more Republican, especially if the Democrats move further to the left on social and economic issues.

I went back and edited some of the Republican states to indicate which would be the strongest.  Basically, my thesis is that both poor Republicans and wealthy Democrats start to swing toward the center as non-abortion social issues lose influence and the parties align on economic issues.  Add that on to natural demographic change in the South/West, and increasing oil and gas influence pulling some states more solidly to the right and you get this map.  Texas never gets competitive because of oil and urban yuppies starting to vote their pocketbooks.